


Prisoner of the Past

by MaybeItWasMemphis



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Kid-fic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:28:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29388444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaybeItWasMemphis/pseuds/MaybeItWasMemphis
Summary: Cheyenne Baker is a small-town reporter and a single mom when she meets her cousin Clark’s, ex-best friend. Can Lex Luthor save Cheyenne from herself?
Relationships: Lex Luthor/Original Female Character
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: *Gets sown into a tight golden gown before going onstage* Author clears her throat and steps up to the imaginary microphone. “Happy birth-day, Mr. Pres-i-de – wait, what? We’re not in a fantasy land where I’m Marylin Monroe, and I own the rights to Smallville? Damn, you could have told me before I got all dressed up!”* Yep, that was my unique way of saying I have nothing, at all, to do with Smallville or the CW Network.
> 
> *TRIGGER WARNING* (Hopefully) accurate depiction of a character suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are also mentions (memories) of domestic violence.

Cheyenne Baker had lived a pretty average western life on her parents' horse farm in Kings, Montana. She had spent her days either working the farm or attending the Kings All-Inclusive School. It was all-inclusive because it was literally the only school in town, servicing all twelve grade levels. In the summers, Cheyenne had spent a month helping out on the farm of her aunt and uncle in Kansas. Her Aunt Martha was her mother’s sister, and her family lived in the slowly dying town of Smallville. Aside from her younger cousin, Clark, who always seemed able to do the work of ten men, and a couple of part-time farmhands, the Kent Farm had no real staff and was almost always on the brink of bankruptcy. They needed all the help they could get. Of course, those visits to Smallville had pretty much ceased after Cheyenne entered college and Clark his teenage years. Cheyenne was sad to say that the last time she visited Kansas, it was four years earlier, and the visit had been for her Uncle Jonathan’s funeral. She hadn’t kept in touch the way she probably should have, but she never really had any free time on her hands.

Cheyenne had gone to college at the University of Michigan and gotten a degree in journalism. After her graduation, she had moved home to Kings and gotten a job at the Kings Observer, the only newspaper in town, with a circulation of only 15,000 and a website so dated that it got even fewer hits than it sold papers every day.

Like many small-town kids, Cheyenne had married right out of college and had given birth to her son, Arlo, only ten months later. She became a widow when Arlo was only three weeks old. Her husband, Sean, had been on his way home from work (he was a state trooper) when he had stopped to change a flat tire. A distracted teenage driver didn’t see him until it was already too late. He was struck and killed instantly.

So, at the age of twenty-six, Cheyenne found herself a single mom with a two-year-old son and a dead-end job at a tiny newspaper that was barely hanging on. \

She was in a hurry that morning, as usual. After dropping Arlo off at daycare, she made her way into work. She had barely set her purse and coffee down on her desk before she was summoned to her editor’s office.

Making her way to her boss' office's glass and wooden door, Cheyenne knocked on the door and waited for permission before she entered. “You wanted to see me, sir?” She was praying he was in a good mood.

Donald Harrison was the middle-aged alcoholic editor of the Kings Observer, and he looked and acted like he had stepped right out of a Spiderman comic book. “I have an assignment for you,” he barked. He was chewing furiously on a piece of gum that was designed to help a person quit smoking. Donald had been cited for smoking in the building the previous week.

Cheyenne crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s the assignment?” She prayed like hell that it wasn’t another fluff piece. She didn’t care if a cow gave birth to another albino calf; she wasn’t writing the story. She refused. She had some integrity left.

“Have you heard about the new Luthorcorp plant that’s opening up over in Corbi?”

Cheyenne nodded. Of course, she had. Corbi was the next town over, and the wealthy residents had thrown a major collective hissy fit at the idea of an industrial plant in their beautiful mountain-side town. The working class had rejoiced because jobs were few and far between in Corbi.

“Well, Lex Luthor is in town for the grand opening on Friday,” Donald explained. “He has agreed to be interviewed…but only by you.”

Why her? She was a nobody reporter from Nowhere, Montana. Lex Luthor was a billionaire businessman and tabloid cover boy. “When and where?”

“Tonight, at seven. You’ll be meeting Luthor for dinner at the Kings Main Street Hotel.” He handed her a yellow sticky note with all of the information scrawled on it in Donald’s chicken scratch handwriting.

Just freakin’ wonderful. Now she was going to have to hire a babysitter. She was so writing this off as a business expense.


	2. Chapter 2

Later that evening, as Cheyenne entered the restaurant in the luxurious Kings Main Street Hotel's lobby, she was not in a good mood. She had been unable to find a babysitter at the last minute, so she had been forced to go to her trusty back-up…her mother. The problem with using her mother to care for Arlo was that her parents' ranch was located twenty miles outside of town. It had taken her over an hour to drop Arlo off with her parents for the night and drive back to town. Now she was running half an hour late for her dinner interview with Lex Luthor. Luthor was probably already gone, and if he was still waiting, he almost certainly would not be pleasant. Kings wasn’t known for much, but it was a popular location for movie shoots because studios caught tax breaks. Cheyenne had interviewed her fair share of celebrities since working for the Observer. In fact, Kings film industry and the gossip that resulted from it was what kept the paper afloat in the internet age. Cheyenne had learned that celebrities were a narcissistic, fickle lot used to getting their own way, and it was easy to anger them and/or bruise their egos. She naturally assumed that billionaires were the same way, if not worse.

When the hostess led her to a booth in the small restaurant's back, she was shocked to find Lex Luthor still there. He had a glass of scotch and an order of fried calamari in front of him, still waiting on her. He stood when he saw her approaching with the hostess. “Miss Baker?” He asked with a relaxed smile, holding out his hand.

Wait a minute. Where was the don’t-you-know-who-I-am level hissy fit? “That would be me, Mr. Luthor, but you can call me Cheyenne.” She shook his hand as the hostess laid her menu on the table. “I apologize for being so late. I had trouble finding a sitter.”

Luthor waited for her to take her seat before he retook his. “Don’t worry about it, Cheyenne.” He brushed her apology off with a wave of his hand. “And, please, call me Lex.”

A waiter stopped by their table and took her drink order before they spoke again. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her cell phone and a notepad full of questions. “I’ll go ahead and get started. That way, you don’t have to spend too much time with the nosey reporter.” She laughed a little nervously. What was wrong with her? She was never this nervous during interviews.

“Take your time. I have nowhere else to be,” Lex shrugged.

Cheyenne decided to start the interview by appeasing her own curiosity. “This question is obviously off the record, but I just have to ask. Why did you request to be interviewed by me? I’m not exactly a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.”

Lex took a slow sip from his drink before answering her. “We know someone in common. Someone I trust, even if he no longer trusts me…”


End file.
